A Marble Figure of Kybele, Roman Imperial, Circa 2nd Century A.D.

seated with her feet resting on a couchant lion, and wearing a chiton and himation.

General Luigi Palma di Cesnola (1832-1904), reportedly discovered by him at Karavostasi (ancient Soli) in Cyprus; also said to have been discovered at Salamis or acquired by Cesnola from a private collection in Larnaca
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1873
Mr. and Mrs. E. W. Harden, New York, 1926
European private collection, acquired prior to 1966
Ophiuchus collection, New York, 1982-2012

“The Explorations of di Cesnola in Cyprus,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, vol. 45, June to November, 1872, p. 206
M. J. Doell, Die Sammlung Cesnola (Mémoires de l’Académie impériale des sciences de Saint-Pétersbourg, vol. XIX, no. 4), 1873, pl. VII, fig. 15
Luigi Palma di Cesnola, Charles William King, and Alexander Stuart Murray, Cyprus: Its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples: A Narrative of Researches and Excavations during Ten Years' Residence as American consul in that Island, New York, 1878, p. 229, illus. (engraving)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Sculptures of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriote Antiquities in the east entrance hall and north aisle, 1880, p. 48, no. 1137 (N. A. 35 .z)
Henri de Morgan, “L.P. di Cesnola et ses prétendues découvertes archéologiques à Soli,” in L’homme. Journal illustré des sciences anthropologiques, no. 21, November 10th, 1884, pp. 642-643
L. Palma di Cesnola, A descriptive Atlas of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriote Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 1, New York, 1885, no. 903, pl. CXXII (photograph)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The stone sculptures of the Cesnola collection of Cypriote antiquities in halls 14, 18, and 19, New York, 1904, p. 76, no. 1111
Salomon Reinach, Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine, vol. II, Paris, 1908, p. 270, no. 7 (line drawing)
Maarten Jozef Vermaseren, Corpus Cultus Cybelae Attidisque (CCCA): Italia, Leiden, 1977, p. 227, no. 722, fig. 25 (line drawing).
Iris Love, Ophiuchus Collection, Florence, 1989, pp. 68-69, cat. no. 11

As shown, surface weathered and discolored overall, fresh break to forelegs of lion and loss on proper left shoulder, other scattered chips, abrasions, and losses, remains of ancient iron pin for attachment of separately carved proper right foot, drill hole in proper right shoulder, the back carved flat.
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According to Cesnola himself (op. cit., 1878, p. 229), he unearthed the present statue in Karavostasi on the site of ancient Soli on Cyprus, on a slope extending up from the left bank of the river Clarios, "in the area" of a ruin which he describes as "the foundations of a circular building with a cave beneath it, which seems to have been a little temple. These foundations consist of  huge blocks of limestone quarried from the neighbouring hills. In the area of this ruin I found, besides several fragments of columns and capitals in marble and granite, an oblong marble slab with a Greek inscription, much injured, but containing the names of Soli and of the Pro-Consul Paulus, most probably the Sergius Paulus who is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. In the same area I discovered a headless figure of Cybele in pure white marble. These maybe the ruins of a temple of Cybele." Several Roman temples were excavated scientifically many decades later in Soli by a Finnish team of archaeologists (see A. Westholm, The Temples at Soli: Studies in Cypriote Art during the Hellenistic and Roman Periods, Stockholm, 1936).

In a thoroughly documented indictment of the veracity and trustworthiness of Cesnola's account, Henri de Morgan (op. cit., 1884) pointed out the following: a) an unpublished album entitled Photographs of Antiquities from the Island of Cyprus, then in the possession of George R. Halm, contained a plate (LXVI) illustrating the present statue with a hand-written note by Cesnola himself: "A headless marble statue of Kybele found at Salamine. Archaeological Discoveries at Cyprus, 1869" (Salamis is 65 miles away from Soli); b) a German archaeologist in Cyprus named Max Ohne-falsch Richter wrote to de Morgan that he knew someone in Larnaca who was ready to testify under oath that the statue had been for a long time in his family before he gave it to Cesnola, and that it had been presumably found on the island of Cyprus.